


Voltage

by cat_77



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Family, Gen, Injury, Kidnapping, Shock Collars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: Both were following the same leads and both ended up in the same situation, so he felt she truly could not call victory at this point.  At least that was his current argument.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Ainsley Whitly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Voltage

**Author's Note:**

> For the “shock collars” entry at hc_bingo. Which, for some reason, AO3 thought was a Zootopia reference. I think I fixed that now.
> 
> * * *

The first thing he noticed when he woke up was how uncomfortable he was. His shoulders were pulled back at an odd angle, cuffs of some sort securing them in place at the small of his back. Given the way there was both an extra jingle and an extra weight when he tried to shift, he assumed that the cuffs in turn were tethered to a yet unknown location. There was another weight around his neck, heavy with sharp edges, and he felt it was safe to assume it was a collar of some sort, though it made no jingle nor had much extra resistance when he tried to move, so perhaps not similarly tethered.

“Wha-where?” he asked the room around him, and was rewarded with a blinding shock of pain centered right at his larynx. 

“Don’t try to talk,” a voice warned, barely above a whisper. 

He knew that voice, a little too well. He craned his neck to the right as far as he could manage in his current position of still laid out on the floor to find Ainsley propped up against the wall beside him. She looked only a little worse for wear, fashionable suit now dusty and dirty and hair a little snarled, but otherwise unscathed. Her hands were behind her back, likely bound like his own, and there was a thick black collar around her throat with a large black box front and center, what looked to be copper wiring coiled along the visible length. A green light lit in the upper left-hand corner of the thing when she audibly sighed to see him conscious enough to move.

“Shock collar?” he guessed, and was rewarded with another jolt of pain. “Voice activated?” he added when he could catch his breath again, this time matching her earlier volume and receiving only the barest tremor instead.

“Sound. Well, vibration,” she corrected, and winced as the green turned to red. “Louder you are, the more it hurts.”

He nodded and swallowed; the two little prongs still warm where they poked against the sensitive skin of his throat. There was the roughness of wire where it was wrapped around the originally smooth surface of the mechanism holding it in place, and he realized the collars has been augmented for maximum damage around the throat as a whole. Definitely something that was going to get worse over time given that he had the propensity to think out loud and the second shock had hurt worse than the first. To him, it seemed to sear already scorched skin but it was not like he could readily verify what truly happened. It may have just been heightened sensitivity from so recent of damage, but he was going to assume the worst as it had served him well in life thus far.

He decided it was time to do a self-assessment, or at least more than just one that told him that he was tied up next to his sister. He scooted and slithered until he could use the wall to help him get a little more upright, or at least as upright as she was beside him. His head throbbed at even that adjustment, which spoke of a possible concussion. At the same time, his mouth was cotton dry, which spoke of being drugged. Aside from that and his wrists already feeling raw, there was nothing beyond a dull all-encompassing ache.

He turned his gaze to Ainsley, who raised an unamused eyebrow in his direction. “Their drugs reacted with your drugs. You fought. I had the pleasure of watching you get knocked out before it fully hit my system,” she explained, and flinched again from the effort.

“So much for not talking?” he teased, and braced himself for the after effects.

She, of course, had to one-up him, and just mouthed the word “Whitly,” which he supposed was explanation enough.

He took the opportunity to look around the room. Gray cement floor. Gray cement ceiling. Gray cement walls with a few metal loops set into them, one of which he assumed he was chained to. Heavy metal door with a window to gaze in on them protected with bars. Standard generic cell. Boring. It told him nothing of the people who took them other than that they had access to a likely industrial-type site, and had seen one too many cliché movies.

He tried to think of those people, what they had looked like, what they had smelled like, anything to give him a clue as to who they were and why they would want them. He could only come up with the most basic of descriptors: average height, above average build for one only, suits with the same color scheme as the room around him for all four. He couldn’t remember hair or eye color and didn’t know if he had actually seen either before he was too out of it for it to matter. They had gone after both himself and Ainsley as he felt drugging his food and fighting him only to take him with implied he was not just collateral damage and neither was she. The obvious takes would be that the abductions were related to either the most recent string of murders they were both investigating, or simply the fact that they were the children of a serial killer. 

He supposed he should just be happy his mother had not been along for lunch in the park, even if that would have helped determine which of the two options was the most viable.

Ainsley had been covering the latest spree and he had been attempting to profile the killers. He said plural as there were far too many moving parts for a single person to be responsible. One maybe more in charge than the others, but there were definitely multiple players. It made it difficult to pin which precise part of the process fell upon which precise person to complete it. That, in turn, made it difficult to figure out if the targeted were targets of one or of all, and why they were targeted at all.

“I’m thinking the DA case against the Worsely family,” Ainsley whispered, cutting into his thoughts. “The Worselys have access to enough properties that one might fit this setup as well.”

It was a sound theory, so he had to point out its flaws. “Then why not target the Sandovals themselves? He has a wife, three children, and a large extended family. Any of which could have been used as leverage against him.”

His sister pursed her lips, less offended and more contemplative. “Unless he was already involved and on the take?” she suggested. 

He nodded. “Either one of us risked exposing that,” he agreed.

“The preliminary hearings are tomorrow. Do you think they’ll hold us until then? Because I drank a lot of water at lunch. Like, a lot…” she mused, again barely loud enough to be heard. She bounced up and down a little, or at least as much as she could manage the way she was bound, and even pointedly crossed her legs at the ankle in front of her.

He tried not to grin at his antics, but easily failed. It was true that the way the room was setup did not lend itself to extended stays, or at least extended stays with any basic comforts. As it was, it was quite chilly and even a little damp, which indicated they were on a sublevel of some sort. The relative quiet let him listen for any telltale sounds of running water or rumbles from any nearby streets or subways, but he found none. That didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t near either as much as it meant they were insulated from sound enough despite the coolness of the room.

“Mom is going to be pissed,” she muttered sometime later. Maybe ten, maybe twelve minutes or so. She never was very good at sitting still without a distraction of some sort to occupy her mind.

“Because we were both taken or because we’ll both miss dinner tonight?” he rose to the bait.

“Probably dinner more than anything else,” she snorted. It was followed by a definite wince as that was enough to set off the collar.

His arms were really beginning to ache from the position they were in, and it was annoying more than anything else. He had wrenched his shoulder the week before on a case and had been careful to stretch it daily, but it was still in the process of fully healing, as it reminded him of now. With nothing else to do, he shuffled forward to see how much slack he had in the line before the chain pulled everything to that much worse of an angle. Satisfied it was enough, he slid back and began to wriggle himself into position. A lot of manipulation, a little discomfort, and a grunt that set off his own collar later, and he had slid his legs through the loop of his arms and now rested with his hands in front of him, wrists red and abraded from the cuffs and his efforts.

“Okay, Yoga Boy,” his sister huffed. He raised his eyebrow in response, willing to bet that she was just annoyed that she hadn’t thought of it first. They had worked out together enough in the past for him to know she was fully capable of the move. Sure enough, she copied him. The only difference was that her heels got in the way and she needed to kick them off to complete the maneuver.

It was approximately twenty minutes later that they received their first visit from their captors. Still in suits like before, but now with ski masks on, probably in case they did not get a look at them back at the park. The first one widened his brown eyes when he noticed their new positioning. The second one narrowed his hazel ones instead.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” he seethed. Not that either one of them got the chance to respond as he pulled what appeared to be a remote from his pocket and pushed a button. Ainsley writhed in pain as the light on her collar flipped from green to red. He had about half a second to contemplate that before a second remote appeared and he got to experience the agony all for himself. 

When the button was released and he could almost breathe again, he couldn’t help but observe, “So, not just voice operated then?” He was rewarded with another bout, but it was almost worth it.

“You two are the supposed brains of all these investigations,” the first man began. Malcolm took note of the phrasing, quite similar to what an informant had used when requesting a meetup with Ainsley earlier that day. He had not been about to let her go alone, nor was she nearly dumb enough to do so. Clearly their instincts were correct and the informant was far more directly involved.

The man went off on a rant, and Malcolm focused more on the ticks and tells than the actual words. Those were common and cliché enough and he knew Ainsley would summarize anyway. They were bait, but not for what the man claimed they were to be. Half-truths and outright lies and a tension that barely kept him from pressing the buttons to key the collars again.

“You know Sandoval won’t give up his witness,” Ainsley huffed. 

She received a shock for her efforts, more than just for the volume used. “Did you not get the memo to being quiet? Would have thought you’d have noticed his reward for mouthing off,” the man growled.

Malcolm shrugged. “Family. What are you going to do?”

The man’s eyes narrowed at that. More importantly, the man behind him visibly flinched despite the poor attempt to pretend to not recognize the name or the significance thereof. To Bright, it was damn near screaming in agreement that his hypothesis was correct. Worsely had been the sole heir to quite an empire. His own children were quickly rising up the corporate ladder in ways some called legacy and others called nepotism. Sandoval came from a larger, but well-appointed family, all successful in their own right. Sandoval himself had been hesitant to prosecute but never directly said why. There had been enough evidence though, and enough pressure, for him to give in and do his job. That pressure had come from Major Crimes and their superiors more than anything else as more and more people connected to the Worsely empire were ending up suffering unfortunate accidents or just outright murdered. Those deaths were staged to look like a serial killer of sorts, but the profile hinted that far more people and far more organization was involved.

There was another rant and about another thirty tells when he added them all up from each of the room’s occupants. Eventually, the so far silent third man snapped a few pictures. The siblings being who they were both offered exaggerated smiles and were rewarded with a smack each, and then another round of photos with split lips. The three men left with what Malcolm assumed was the fourth man slamming the door shut behind them. There was an echo of a lock sliding into place, and a shadow that determinedly did not move from the window.

Ainsley’s tongue darted out to poke at the injury, frowning when she encountered blood, and he resisted the urge to do the same with his own. Instead, he waited for her to finish her self-review and quietly muse, “Did I mention that Sandoval’s niece is an Admin at ExchangeLite?”

That was the name of one of the businesses Worsely funneled funds through with fake transactions. Layered carefully, and with legitimate business mixed in, but with enough discrepancies to warrant a deeper review. 

He nodded, having received that information just that morning. Felicia Conrad, late twenties, in a decently significant supervisory role given her age. He, of course, needed to one-up her, so he supplied, “Isn’t Daniel Vargas her supervisor? Or is he Lachlan’s?”

Daniel Vargas was the brother-in-law of Sandoval’s own sister. Lachlan Conrad was Worsely’s son’s mistress and Felicia’s cousin. The ties between the two families were quite intricate, if you knew to look for them. They also explained Sandoval’s hesitance to prosecute. Gil was to meet with his superiors that very afternoon to try to get him pulled from the case for a conflict of interest. Whether the man was involved or not, clearly his extended family was potentially close enough to be an issue.

It was nearly another hour by his estimate before the masked men returned. The cliched black bags were tugged over their heads and their tethers were removed though their hands remained cuffed in place. Tellingly, they were not re-cuffed behind them meaning they did not want to take the risk of any sort of resistance. He was tossed into the back of what he assumed was a work van of some sort, and the less than delicate grunt beside him led him to believe his sister received the same treatment. After a short drive with enough right turns for him to believe they did not actually travel that far, both were dragged out and marched to an area that was more than a little chilly and made each footstep reverberate against the hard, likely concrete, floor. Here he could feel the dampness in the air and, mixed with the cold, he assumed they were close to the river, probably for ease of getaway or disposal of bodies but he kind of hoped for the former more than the latter.

The bags were yanked off and he reflexively blinked against the brighter light. The man with the slightly larger build stood before him now, and bodily shifted both him and Ainsley to literal X’s marked against the simple gray surface. He took the opportunity to glance at his new surroundings and found a fairly standard industrial complex with catwalks and walkways and a general maze of equipment both above and around him. The windows were too high to truly see out of, but he heard a foghorn-like blast of noise that confirmed the location to be near enough to the water. He also spotted the glint of sniper scopes and, given that they were aimed at the large doorway before him and not actually at the room’s current occupants, he suspected it was not part of some sort of heroic rescue plan.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” the man in front of him growled. He focused his eyes on him to clearly convey that he was paying attention this time. Attention to his tells as much as his words again, but at least he was listening. “Your man is going to come in to make the exchange. He’s allowed one other unarmed companion. He’s going to drop the package and will believe that is the signal that you are free to go. You even flinch, and you, him, and that sister of yours aren’t going to like what happens. Understand?”

He nodded, as did Ainsley.

“Didn’t quite hear that,” the man sneered.

“Yes, I understand,” he replied quietly. At a jab to the gut, he took a breath and gave in and played to the man’s slightly sadistic control issues. “I understand,” he said, loud enough this time to shock himself.

He could just make out a smirk as he caught his breath and heard Ainsley repeat the process. “Just want you two to remember what the cost is if you’re not all quiet and well behaved.” As if to accent his words, he thumbed the remotes one at a time. The way his eyes dilatated when he watched them writhe in place and try not to make any further noise spoke volumes of his mindset and Malcolm felt it was a safe assumption that he was tied far more directly to some of the murders.

As the man sauntered away, Malcolm saw Ainsley open her mouth to undoubtedly say something that would aggravate the situation further. “Don’t,” he whispered in warning. She pouted, but acquiesced. 

From then on, it was a waiting game. One that he assumed would both be short, and likely brutal. Whoever arrived for the exchange was the true target, and he and his sister were going to be collateral damage. If they were not caught in any ensuing crossfire, they would probably be shot outright by the men hidden above. With that in mind, he tried to track just where those men were and then where everything stood in relation to the setup as a whole.

He and Ainsley and their little X’s were relatively in the middle of a semi-lit square that was cleared of everything but them and the tape. The light extended roughly three yards to his left and another of the same to his sister’s right. Boxy equipment and storage containers were tucked to the sides, potential cover if they could make it to them in time and if more thugs didn’t lurk there in waiting. There was an expanse of roughly ten yards in front of them both, most of it lit, with a doorway and almost vestibule shadowed by the overhang of a walkway that circled the area as a whole. Given that he could make out a piece of tape on the dark side of the edge of the square, he had a feeling just where the kill zone began.

He craned his neck the best that he could given that he was both under watch and slightly limited in his movements from the collar. He could see who waited at the sides but not behind them, and it would have been just plain stupid to not put someone there.

Ainsley shifted her stance just a tiny bit beside him, enough to catch his attention. Her bare feet curled against the floor, heels left behind in the transfer. She gave him a pointed look, and then glanced as far back as she could without actually moving her head. He nodded, a barely there twitch, and waited for her to make her move. It was surprisingly subtle, for her. She cleared her throat and forced a cough, which was loud enough to set off her own collar. While she doubled over far more than necessary from that, he pretended to turn to check on her and finally caught sight of what waited behind them.

“Eyes forward!” a voice barked from somewhere above them.

He dutifully turned back around and could just make out his sister’s whisper of, “Ouch, by the way.”

His lips twitched, but he did not outwardly grin so as not to give the game away as to what she had just pulled. Instead, while she pretended to hang her head and look as worn down as possible, he twitched his fingers to list off the positions he saw the glint of sights in. It was a system they had come up with years ago while playing hide-and-seek with some unwilling nannies. She in turn added a correction that was close enough to what he had just said for him to know she was just being difficult. There were the four men who had taken them, with two of those directly behind them. They had clearly picked up assistance as there were another three, four if you counted the man skulking behind the machines to his left, and five if there was someone to Ainsley’s right in a similar position. They must have made the assumption that whoever was coming would not come alone as that seemed like excessive firepower, even counting in him and his sister to the mix.

So now they at least had a better idea of what they were up against. They just had to figure out who was going to be the lamb to be slaughtered carrying out the supposed trade. 

When the door finally opened, he did not resist the urge to swear under his breath. “Hey, kid. We’re here to get you two out of here,” an unfortunately familiar voice greeted him from still beneath the overhang.

Gil. Of course, it would be Gil. Who else was leading the charge against Sandoval? Even if it had been a member of any of his squad, he’d take the blame and saunter on in like he was doing now.

Ainsley offered a half-hearted wave with her bound hands and he really hoped Gil noticed she was gesturing to above her with the motion. He waved back, a red folder in his hands. “I have what you asked for,” he called out. “A copy of the file and photos from all of the scenes. I brought a medic since the ones you shared showed these two worse for wear.”

The looming figure behind him waved a small duffle of all things that had been slung over his shoulder and it took Malcolm an extra second to realize it was JT. He wore a medic uniform with an extra baseball hat pulled down low, and the duffle was red with what might have been a caduceus on it. Technically, it was not a lie as JT had served as medic to the team in extreme situations before, his military training accounting for more experience than the others combined unless Edrisa was with them. There was very noticeably no actual hospital or other designations on it, possibly to make sure they didn’t break any laws.

The two men stepped forward, and Malcolm could tell the moment they spotted the line of tape. “Put the folder on the ground, just past the line. I’ll send my guy to get what’s ours and then you take your people with you when you go,” the man behind them responded, victory evident in every word.

Gil started to step forward that last little bit and Malcolm knew it was his one and only chance. He readied himself and saw Ainsley do the same at his side. She, of course, had to beat him to the punch. She raised her hands to her collar as if to tug it as far away from her neck as possible and shouted, “Snipers!”

While she doubled over from the literal shock, he shouted the positions, numbers, and the suspected weapons. He didn’t bother with trying to keep the prongs away from his throat as he wrapped his arms around his sister. The electricity raced through him but he ignored it the best he could to half-drag and half-carry her towards the shadows in a vain attempt for cover. The shots started before he was truly successful, but they were close enough and the angles now all wrong without the snipers repositioning themselves to go after them versus their primary targets. He also aimed for behind a machine and man he could now more clearly see hidden in the shadows and hoped he came up with a plan to deal with him before he came to deal with them instead.

The shots started to come from all around him, which he took to mean Gil and JT were now involved as well. He glanced up even as he tried to tuck the last of himself out of the light and behind some more of the equipment to discover that JT had made a run towards his hiding spot and that Gil was decidedly not alone. What looked to be a fair deal of the Major Crimes division as well as possibly some SWAT poured in through the door behind him, but Malcolm knew for a fact that was not the only exit point of the building.

He attempted to warn JT, who shouted back, “Dude, we know! The place is surrounded.” He then easily disarmed and disabled the man Malcolm had been worried about getting the upper hand.

The duffle clearly contained supplies of a non-medical nature as JT pulled out vests for both of the former hostages. He didn’t have keys for the decidedly non-police-issued cuffs, but he started to fit the first one over Ainsley’s head anyway, tucking the excess through the loop of her arms without Malcolm even protesting for him to take care of her first. He eyed the collar around her throat and shook his head, though whether it was in disgust or in exasperation that the siblings had both clearly ignored the threat of harm to themselves to warn the others.

“Voice activated and y’all screamed at us anyway?” he guessed.

Ainsley shrugged in confirmation but it was then that one of their former captors hollered, “You two little brats will pay for that!” and they were reminded of the remote controls. The remote controls that were clearly still in his hand as both went off.

“Remote too,” Malcolm managed, knowing he stated the obvious but also feeling the need to fully identify how much the situation truly sucked. He had trouble catching his breath from the pain, and from trying not to scream and possibly further aggravate the situation. If someone took the man with the controls out and he continued to set his own off, he would never live that down.

His body as a whole shook now, pain radiating down each and every limb. It was centered at his throat and curled around his neck to the knobs of his spine, but even his fingertips and toes burned, or maybe that was just his imagination. He forced open the eyes he had clenched shut to see his sister writhe next to him. He reached out to her and knew he could not pry the damned thing off as they had tried back in the cell, but hoped to maybe at least get the prongs further away from her already burned skin. His limbs spasmed against the attempt to control them, but he forced past that to the task at literal hand.

The moment his fingers connected, his own pain ratcheted up tenfold, but she at least looked like she could breathe again. JT slapped his hands away though, which knocked him off balance enough that he collapsed fully to the floor. He watched as the larger man bodily flipped his sister over, yanked her hair back and out of the way, and used what looked to be bolt cutters on the lock that held the damned thing in place. In seconds, he had it removed fully and tossed to the side, the prongs and little red light still lit and active, the copper wiring scorched black in places from the current as they clearly did not use quality materials.

It was his turn for the same treatment soon enough and he was not ashamed to admit there were tears in his eyes by the time the offending item was chucked as far away as possible. He tried to breathe deep against the burn but found it much harder than it truly needed to be. He pushed himself up into a kneeling position so that his lungs would not need to work against the weight and gravity of his own body, and saw his own bound and singed hands before he realized what JT had risked to get them out of the collars so quickly.

“Your hands…” he gasped.

“Will heal,” JT promised him. He glanced down at the redness that rivaled that of Malcolm’s own fingertips and admitted, “They hurt like a son of a bitch right now, not going to lie, but it’s better than you two getting fried in front of me.”

“Thank you,” Ainsley told him with a telling amount of emotion to her tone.

He nodded in acknowledgement and held out the second vest towards Bright himself. “Let’s get this on you and then get both of you the hell out of here,” he directed.

The shots had died down to random bursts and pops meaning the worst of it was over, but Malcolm knew enough not to protest the protection. He let JT slide the vest in place the best he could, and even let him help him to his admittedly shaky feet after he did the same for Ainsley. The siblings leaned on each other for support while the detective proved there were more than vests in the duffle and pulled out his service weapon to cover them despite plenty of others now there to do the same. He herded them both towards the door and to the bright light of the outside where Gil and Dani waited for them, the former having been shoved to safety pretty much the moment SWAT entered the fray. Malcolm took a tiny bit of quiet comfort in the fact that he had judged correctly, and he could see the pier from where he was led.

“You okay, kid?” Gil asked as he approached. He raised his arm as if to complete his trademark move of resting a hand reassuringly against his shoulder, but Malcolm could tell the moment the older man saw the state of his throat. The hand fell lower, to just above his elbow instead, and gave a gentle squeeze.

“If he says he’s fine, I’m going to punch him,” Ainsley answered for him. Her voice was hoarse and wavered in telling ways.

Dani smirked and JT snorted and Bright would have called them traitors save for the part that JT possibly just saved him from dying of heart failure from the current that coursed through him before he got the collar off. “Let’s get those cuffs off of you and get you treated,” Dani offered somewhat diplomatically despite the humor still evident in her tone.

She and Gil ushered the three of them towards the waiting ambulances with actual medics and actual medical gear. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of a hospital visit with this one. He wanted his sister checked out and she would use that as leverage against him and they both knew it. A glance at his team and he amended that thought to the fact they all knew it and were completely fine with this plan. Also, Ainsley was totally going to tattle about the drugs and the reaction and the possible concussion, he could see it in the glint of her eyes. At least he could counter with her also being dosed.

As Phillips started in on his cuffs for him, Bright thought to ask, “How did you know? The vests, the bolt cutters…” The needing SWAT was just common sense.

“You doubt our amazing detective skills?” Dani teased. She bodily shoved JT at another medic, who rolled his eyes but went with it for now. “You do know we’ve been doing this since long before you joined the team, right?”

“Also, you might have lost your wire but your sister still had hers up until what I’m assuming was transport to this place,” JT added easily enough. “It started cutting out around the time you both decided being quiet was for losers and the last clear read we got on you were you both listing familial connections in front of the people who wanted to hide those connections.” Bright detected a fair bit of judgment there, mixed with equal parts exasperation.

“It was hard to pretend like it wasn’t shocking me right in the ear after the first few attempts at frying us,” Ainsley told him, pointedly ignoring the judgment aspect. “Losing it was a plus-minus situation because I no longer knew you were still there but at least there was a chance I wasn’t going to lose my hearing permanently.”

She realized her folly when her own medic immediately moved to check both ears before she could renege on her words. “I’ll have them run tests at the hospital as nothing we have here is sensitive enough to fully check right now,” Witherspoon told her. She even met her rolled eyes with a matching set of her own, exaggerated to show there were no hard feelings. 

“Malcolm was totally drugged,” his sister said as if on cue.

He nodded easily enough, but narrowed his eyes at her in triumph when he replied, “By the same cookies you ate.” While she scoffed and pouted, he turned to Gil to verify, “The cart vendor in custody?”

“The cookie guy, the coffee guy, the balloon cart that happened to be in our way when we realized all visual surveillance had been cut, Cosar for giving us that surveillance equipment… You get the picture,” he replied. It would seem that the good Lieutenant’s part of the story was nearly as long as his own. “Good call on using stuff from Powell’s personal stash.” She beamed, right up until he added, “That she was supposed to have returned after the Gerten matter but, seeing how it meant they weren’t tampered with, I’ll let it pass.”

She looked dutifully cowed by that, or at least she did to people who didn’t know her well enough. “I’d say that this helps my argument that we should always have one full set in office and ready to go without needing to wait for Central Distribution?”

Gil was unimpressed. “And I say that you’d probably slip one of the pieces into Bright’s pocket when he wasn’t looking and then mock his attempts at flirting,” he countered. Malcolm’s head shot up at that, especially since he swore he heard Gil add the word “again” while Witherspoon’s counterpart Gillies easily grabbed his chin and guided it back into place so he could better assess the burns that lined his throat and neck.

SWAT called clear and Malcolm knew there was about to be a sizeable amount of paperwork to be completed, just not by him. He’d give his statement, probably from a cubicle in the Emergency Room, collaborate Ainsley’s, and be done. The others should finish up about the time they were discharged. With that in mind, he offered, “Drinks when you’re done? Ainsley’s buying.”

Dani’s face lit up at that. “She always chooses the good stuff. Apps too? Or, since it’ll be above our usual paygrade, should I call them tapas?”

“Think they’ll let me into a swanky place like that with my hands all bandaged up?” JT mused. He flexed his fingers, temporarily swathed in white.

Ainsley stretched her own hands, many of her own fingers matching the state of his. “They’ll let you in because you’re with me,” she announced as if it were a done deal. Given the Whitly name and money, it pretty much was. The hardest part would be getting out of dinner with their mother. If they claimed a victory meal, it might work. “And of course there will be tapas! What kind of host do you think I am?”

Witherspoon paused in her ministrations to make a face. “You really think they won’t keep you overnight? And you might need more than tapas to handle any alcohol after this.”

Malcolm looked over to his sister, who matched his look with an identical one of her own. “AMA twins?” he grinned. 

“And we are our mother’s children after all, so no need to question our tolerance,” she tossed in because she could.

Gil sighed the sigh of the long suffering, but Bright knew he would do precisely nothing to stop either one of them from doing whatever they wanted after a day like they had just had. “Powell’s got your phones. Set up a reservation and we’ll try to meet you there.” He eyed the state of their filthy and rumpled clothing before he added, “Even the dive bars would give you looks coming in like this; maybe wash up first?”

It was as close to a blessing as he was going to give and they both knew it. Bright made a mental note to order the bacon-wrapped quail eggs Gil secretly adored but would never order for himself along with the venison sliders he had caught JT eying the last time they went out. Dani and Ainsley already had a shared preference for the brie and phyllo dough bites, so there would be plenty of those already. They’d need some carbs mixed in to help absorb the alcohol, and he’d make sure the few uniforms that tried to follow to make sure no hit was taken out on their boss were taken care of as well.

With the plans for the evening set to go hopefully better than the plans for the afternoon, he climbed in beside his sister and set his phone for alerts on both Sandoval and Worsely. Ainsley would have a live feed from the station itself, but there was still the chance he could beat her to the punch at least once more before the night was over. 

Bad guys caught or about to be, good food on its way, the day definitely counted as a win.


End file.
